Joy Newcomb owner of THiRDiPHOTO is portrait and landscape photographer based in Los Angeles, CA where she focuses on capturing memories and experiences for her clients. In her blog, she writes about her photography, attempting to travel on a budget in an RV and full knee replacement surgery.

I experienced a massive shift in my thinking this weekend, I've been on a documentary kick and watched a film called 'Minimalism' on Netflix. It was a push I needed to "rethink" how I lived, purchased and spent my money.

I ran errands to pick up some groceries & headed to Big Lots for candles and to see what I could get at a discount. Typically I walk around and see what else I could “possibly” need. Then I realized, “need” was arbitrary. I didn’t need anything, other than my groceries. I instantly saw Big Lots as a bunch of “wants” and just grabbed the food for the week I wanted and yes a couple of candles.

It was like a switch flipped in my head and a booming voice shouted (pretty sure it was my dad’s).

“Do you REALLY need that?”

I instantly had a flash of all the times I went to Target or Big Lots or IKEA and just spent money to fill my home with “things”.

It was a liberating feeling.

Still lots of research to do regarding how to create this travel lifestyle on a budget while maintaining my job, which requires reading in my “spare” time, which seems to be shrinking INCREDIBLY fast!!!

I do know that I need to simplify my life, clean it of clutter and unnecessary items that only collect dust. Since I do not have a garage for a "garage"sale. I will create an apartment sale.

I don’t have a big place and will have to keep the items separated, but I will start I will place tags on the items I will be selling, so if anyone ever comes over, they can shop.

My plan for keeping it organized.

Bedroom = Keep

Living Room = Sell

I know as I go through this process, the items I choose for keeping will change and have to be reduced again but I have to start somewhere. Once I get this completed and items priced, I‘m planning on holding an apartment sale; first telling my friends and neighbors so they can browse and shop. Then I will open it up to the public. I figured I may have to do this a few times to truly clean out the clutter. I would like to honestly get down to what I would have in a small studio apartment.

This is a good place to truly start determining what I need in my life.